Sega wants more studio deals

Speaking in an interview published today in Develop sister magazine MCV, Sega Europe boss Mike Hayes explained that the company could do with “two or three” more studios in its internal network of Western teams.

Earlier this year, the company acquired London-based Sports Interactive, creator and developer of the best-selling Football Manager series, and San Francisco-based Secret Level. It’s also opened its own UK-based Racing Studio and last year bought The Creative Assembly.

Sega has also been aggressively hunting down new staff – just a few weeks ago the company took on over 30 developers across a variety of roles in its UK teams.

Hayes said: “I think for Sega ‘west’ we probably need another two or three studios within the family to get to the critical mass we want to get. We’re aggressively wanting to work with more third party devs but having two or three in-house would be ideal. Who they would be and when that will happens is based on the market and the opportunities that arrive, so we’re constantly on the lookout.”

He also added that Sega wishes to expand its portfolio even further, saying that shooters and RPGs are key to its mix of European, American and Japanese made content: “There are some projects being worked on in North America that will fill the gap in that area. And another big gap is movies – in the next few months we will be announcing another two big movie tie-ins.”